Chapter 33: She Was Exposed
However, her body had seen some minor repeated injuries that needed regular treatment and review. When the doctors applied a heating or chilling treatment, Arianna always counted numbers to distract herself from the pain. She used this technique sometimes when she was with Travis.
Arianna gradually accepted her relationship with Travis Cooper. And maybe because of the change in her attitude, Travis also softened his attitude towards her.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.
Travis did not hurry to bring her to bed on one particular evening. Rather, he asked her to try on a few dresses he picked out for her.
The dresses were one-of-a-kind, handcrafted evening gowns. Although she grew up like a princess before she was seventeen, she never had the opportunity to wear something so elegant and mature.
In front of Travis, Arianna had lost her sense of shame. She was not afraid to move her body when she was completely naked around him. She simply tried one dress on and waited for his feedback before sliding it off and putting on another one while he watched.
If any other woman did that, it would usually be in seduction. But Arianna did it out of contempt.
It turned out that being a fashion model was difficult. After trying on a handful of dresses, Arianna was feeling tired.
Travis enjoyed watching her change from dress to dress. However, his facial expression didn’t show it. He was leaning back in a chair by the window, smoking his cigarette indifferently.
Travis didn’t even look at her when Arianna changed into the last white silk gown. He was lazily leaning on the windowsill, watching the shadow of the trees move on the water in the pool below them.
The moonlight shone through the window beautifully. The breeze blew through Travis’s hair and over his face from time to time. He was wearing a white vest over a white shirt and loose beige trousers. His shirt was unbuttoned, leaving his bare chest also exposed to the wind.
Arianna thought he looked like he was from a scene in a movie. The breeze pushed up the hem of his shirt, giving him white angel wings. The moonlight outlined his beautiful facial features. She thought she was silly for thinking of him as a pimp.
She laughed aloud at the thought. Travis had never heard her laugh like this before. He invited her to watch a funny movie on their next few dates trying to hear it again, but unfortunately, it never happened.
***
Arianna didn’t know how her grandfather discovered her relationship with Travis. They took many measures to keep it a secret from everyone. But now, suddenly, she was exposed.
Though Travis disrespected her in bed, he was a gentleman on all other occasions and did respect her wishes. They set their meeting times and locations with caution to keep her grandfather from finding out.
She felt grateful that Travis was very cooperative with the secrecy. However, he enjoyed the look on her face when she worried about the discovery of their affair.
Arianna was extremely vigilant with her dates with Travis. Her grandfather rarely questioned her personal business and accepted her outings as part of her growth, but when he asked about her boyfriend for the second time, Arianna was caught off guard.
Franco Sanchez’s expression integrated disappointment, anger, sadness, resentment, and humiliation all into one. With all of these negative energies combined, they pierced Arianna’s soul like flying swords.
She stuck to her usual excuses for being out late, such as working overtime or charity events. But he threw a few photos at her feet. She shook as she squatted down to see them.
A series of photographs were on the floor. The film was not clear. At a glance, she could tell the photos were shot with a high-power lens from a long distance. The appearance of a man and a woman in the photos was ambiguous. However, her grandfather could easily tell that it was her.
The photos were a sequence of continuous actions: Arianna leaned in Travis’s arms like a supple kitten in a lounge bar; they walked out of place with his arm draped over her shoulders; she was lying on his lap as the driver closed the car door.
And the last photo was of the car, and the license plate number was clearly visible. Arianna’s heart was getting cold.
She remembered the evening in which those photos were taken. That was the only time she let her guards down. She typically limited her close contact with Travis to the bedroom. She preferred them to look like strangers outside of it.
But that night, she had dinner with several colleagues in the restaurant.
Coincidentally, she met Travis in the hallway when she excused herself from making a call. Unsurprisingly, a waiter gave her a note on her way out with an address on it. This was his usual style.
Arianna felt extremely insulted. He usually coordinated their meetings with her rather than summoning her for sex upon meeting by coincidence. Travis always had his way of humiliating her; his methods were infinite.
Although she clenched her hands and teeth, she obliged to the request.
****
Travis was not particularly interested in her body. After a meeting, it was usually a week or two before he contacted her again. Arianna eventually began to realize that the more she pleased him during their time together, the longer she would be free from him.
On the anniversary date of the death of her old nanny, Arianna was in a sad mood. She didn’t sulk over the deaths of her parents or grandmother anywhere near as much as her nanny. Arianna thought this was because she loved her the most and she was the first one ripped away from her.
The nanny had spent much more time with Arianna than anyone else in the household. And Arianna blamed herself for her death sometimes. She thought if the nanny didn’t work so much and had rested instead, maybe she would not have gotten sick.
Arianna’s eyes were sullen. She did not have the energy to do anything that day. But when she looked at her phone, she saw a text from the new girl at work, Melissa. It said, “Hey, what time do you want to go for dinner tonight with the girls?”